


Together In The Dark

by delilahbelle



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2015-09-04
Packaged: 2018-04-18 22:47:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4723184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delilahbelle/pseuds/delilahbelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's amazing how dreams of Peggy and dreams of war can make Steve feel the exact same. Luckily, he has Sam there for when the nights are too hard to bear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Together In The Dark

**Author's Note:**

> (triggers: references to suicide) (hints of Steve/Sam)

_He wakes up to her lips on his jaw, her silky silver-blue nightgown whispering softly against the fabric of his shirt. He just lays there for a beat or two or three, not moving, letting her soft hair brush over his throat and her fingers dance into his hair, her rings cool against his ear. He waits until she's worked her way down his throat and is nibbling at his collarbone to wrap an arm around her and open his eyes. She's smiling at him, warm and sweet and almost teasing, like she knew he was playing with her and she was playing right back. She probably did._

_“Rise and shine, Captain,” she laughs. “I've cooked breakfast.” She's not made up for the day yet, day-old curls tousled with sleep, falling from where she's tucked them behind her ears. He tightens his arm around her, careful not to put too much pressure. No one could accuse Peggy Carter of being weak, but he is still so much stronger than her. More than human. He kisses her wherever he can reach her—her shoulder, the nightgown breaking up where he can reach, the knob of her collarbone, the curve of her throat, the soft sensitive skin right below her jaw. He can smell her perfume lingering in her hair, a lush floral scent. She laughs huskily. “We've a meeting with Howard, and he'll know why we're late. Up, darling. The eggs will be cold.”_

_He's more worried they won't be edible, since Peggy is easily distracted by playing with knives in the kitchen. There's scorch marks on the wall from when she forgot to pay attention while flambeing something when her family visited. Her brother mocked her for weeks. He presses a kiss to her mouth and lets her go, shoving himself up into a sitting position and rubbing sleep out of his eyes._

Steve awakes with a gasp in a puddle of blood and sweat, the blankets tangled around his legs, his torso half off the bed, like he was getting ready to rise. He blinks twice, wondering where she went before he remembers. It takes less time these days to remember. He pushes himself up fully and breathes to the count of ten, ignoring his pounding heart. He doesn't breathe like he's still five feet four with bones of glass and lungs of paper anymore—except for when he dreams of the past. It's amazing how all the dreams can be so similar. Amazing how Peggy in dishabille, wedding ring glinting in the sunlight, can arouse the same terror and panic that the memories of a child with bomb burns and missing limbs.

He tries to get out of bed. It ends up more as a tumble, the sheets still curled around his feet and his back stuck to the sheets from the blood. He stumbles into a standing position, wincing when he realizes he's ripped open the cut on his back, and stays still for a few beats, hoping Sam didn't hear that. When nothing happens, he moves into the bathroom slowly. The clock says it's two seventeen. Steve thinks the Avengers got back around twelve thirty, so he knows he hasn't been asleep long. Count Nefaria has been dealt with for the time being, but he left them all with injuries to remember him by. Steve thinks most of his are from being thrown into that glass and concrete building, but he isn't sure. After that, everything seemed to hurt. He hadn't even found the energy to clean up before throwing himself into bed. Last night, Count Nefaria. The night before, the Serpent Society. The night before that, AIM was doing something with alien tech. 

Maybe that's it, he thinks. Maybe that's why it has been so bad lately. Maybe it has nothing to do with Peggy's turn for the worse or her daughter showing up at the tower, trading irritated barbs with a deliberately condescending Tony and giving Steve back the drawings he did of Peggy during the war along with a ton of pictures of her and all of his belongings. He never realized Peggy was the one who took possession of his things he brought with him to London or the things left behind in the tiny shoebox he and Bucky called home. Bucky's things had been taken by his remaining siblings, but Steve's had come to Peggy.

But maybe it's just lack of sleep. After all, the Avengers have been busy lately. Weeks of meetings about culpability and even more about the rebuilding of SHIELD and the vetting of agents. Days spent on an endless parade of government stupidity, followed by a quick succession of attacks. Maybe that's all it is.

He sinks into the tub, letting the hot water flow over him and holds on to that thought, as if repeating it will make it true. But he knows what it is. It's Peggy on her twenty-fifth birthday with Howard and the Howling Commandos, Dernier plying her with champagne he bought for the occasion, Peggy's hand tucked into Gabe Jones'. It's Peggy on her thirtieth birthday, smiling up a camera, hand on the swell of her stomach, wedding ring flashing on her hand, her husband—not Gabe, which he feels guilty for feeling relieved about—tucked beside her, hand over hers. It's her and Howard, on Howard's wedding day. She was pregnant again with her youngest, a surprise child, the swell of her stomach smaller but still noticeable, in a dress that looks like it was spun of wispy silk and roses, fixing Howard's tie, her expression one that meant she was lecturing. Her daughter had joked that Peggy marched Howard to the alter with a gun at his back. Steve believes she would do that. Steve believes Howard might have never gotten married otherwise.

There are dozens of pictures her daughter gave him. Ones of her with her children, ones of her with her husband. But there are more of her with Howard, or with the Howling Commandos, or alone. Even with a baby-faced troublesome Tony, who couldn't have been more than eight. In it, Tony is fiddling under the hood of her car, and her expression is the same one she wore when Howard presented them with a questionable new prototype. There's several with Sharon, and he wonders what Peggy thought of her niece becoming a SHIELD agent. The Agent 13 title would have been retired as a sign of respect to SHIELD's founder, so she had to have given approval for it to go to Sharon. He wonders if she was upset about that. There's Sharon at five, tiny and worn down. He doesn't know the circumstances that led to Peggy adopting her, but she looks so small in that picture, like she doesn't understand the cake and party were for her. In another, she's wearing bright shoes with fringe on them for her first day of school. It's funny seeing her messy style next to Peggy in her timeless dress. It seems from the pictures that they took a picture together the first day of every school year. (“We thought it was stupid,” Peggy's daughter said when he asked. “So we never did it with her. She took advantage of Sharon being willing.”) There's one of Sharon with her high school diploma, in a dress Peggy wore in a picture taken twenty years before. Steve thinks of how similar Sharon is to Peggy and wonders if he'll ever be able to feel comfortable with his crush on her.  


Then there's the worst image: Peggy in the fifties, being spun around a dance floor by Howard, her skirt in a perfect arc around her. It was a celebration for the end of the war. There's a poster of him and Bucky in the back, surrounded by other pictures of the fallen. Every time he looks at it, he remembers he will never get to dance with her but she looks so heartbreaking lovely in it.

“Man, you couldn't have slept a single wink,” Sam yawns out. Steve jumps. Sam yawns again and says, “Sorry. I saw the light. You okay?”

“I'm fine,” Steve says automatically then winces. Sam will see right through it. Sam rolls his eyes and drops down onto the rim of the tub. Which is about two feet wide, because Stark has found such strange bathroom ornaments. It's hard to get into when you're battle-worn or injured but it provides a convenient shelf to put things on. Or sit on in this case.

“You gotta sleep, Cap. We got six hours blocked off today for a bunch of bullshit. You need rest.”

“I dreamed of Peggy.” Steve fiddles with the controls and makes it warmer. He sinks lower into the water and pretends he doesn't see Sam turn and pin him with a worried stare. The tub is deep, and Sam eventually stops being patient and swings around, settling his legs into the water. He has a bruise over his thighs and a kneecap wrapped into place. Steve fiddles with the controls some more, lowering the water just enough so it doesn't touch the wrapping. “We were married and she was waking me up,” he says, as if its accuracy can excuse the lack of emotion he puts into it. It's more effort than it's worth—Sam has a good idea of what he's always feeling. “I used to dream about it during the war. But… it seems more like a nightmare these days.”

“Hoping for the future isn't the same as wishing for the past.”

“My father was a soldier in the Great War,” Steve says. “And mom was a nurse. You think I'd—I never thought I'd die until I was in that plane. It wasn't invincibility. I guess I got so used to thinking I would die from my lungs or heart. Useless organs.”

“No, they're pretty important,” Sam says blandly. Steve nudges his leg with his foot.

“They were pretty useless before the serum. They didn't work right. None of me worked right. My grandparents used to say it was because I was Irish. My dad's parents. They were Protestant. They didn't like mom and me much.”

Sam snorts. “Some people are unlucky. It's because life ain't fair, not because God is pissed off.” There's a brief pause. “Does a Christian God even exist? I mean—The Norse thought Thor was a god. He's just an alien.” Sam shakes his head as if he's shaking himself out of something. “Theology is not good for two am.”

“I think two am is the only time I'd ever want to discuss theology. And metaphysics,” Steve counters because Sam talks about that when he's exhausted to the point of dropping. It keeps him awake somehow. “Who cares either way? I was a ticking time bomb. Without the serum, I might not have made it two more years. Probably wouldn't have lived to the end of the war. Maybe I was just destined to die.”

“I don't believe in destiny,” Sam says. “But don't tell my parents. They're big believers. This hot water feels good. Didn't realize I was so sore.”

“It does.” Steve rubs his eyes. “I'm so tired, but I feel like all I'll see when I close my eyes is her.”

“She's as good as dead, Steve. I know you don't want to hear it but it's surprising she lasted this long.”

“I know. I know.”

They sit in silence for a few minutes. The water cools; Steve heats it back up again. Sam sighs after a while. “She'll die, because that's what humans do. I had eight years with Riley and he up and left me. I had a beer made with honey for him. It's disgusting but he drank the stuff like water. I drank a bottle for him the day after he died. We were lucky. We got his body back to his family. He was engaged, you know. His fiancee cried for weeks. I wanted to crawl into bed and cry with her. I couldn't. I had to go back. They only gave me enough time for his funeral. She's going on a date for the first time since he died next week. She emailed me. People die, Steve, and everyone has to just get on with it. Peggy Carter did it after you died and after her husband did.”

“I sound ungrateful, you mean. I get a second chance. Riley didn't.”

“I wouldn't want Riley to have a second chance like yours. I don't want him to be as miserable as you. I don't want him to be like your friend Barnes. He's dead, and we… we just had to accept that. I had eight years with him. His fiancee had three. His parents had thirty one. And one day, I'll start to forget his face because that's how the brain works. Memories fade. I'll forget his last words to me were, 'Hey, Wilson! You're wearing a pink suit at my wedding!'”

Steve laughs without meaning to.

“Yeah, yeah. I lost a bet. I got there after he did. I used to think about what would have happened if he wasn't rushing because of that stupid bet or if I got there first or if we didn't talk each other into doing the Falcon project. A plane would have protected him better. It doesn't help. Thor may have technology on Asgard that can put you through time, but something's always gonna happen. There aren't any right choices. You do what you think is best at that moment and then you deal with whatever happens after that.”

“Is that supposed to make it easier?”

“Hell no. Nothing makes it easier. I don't need to tell you that. But you have to sleep. And you have to put one foot in front of the other until you die… or until it gets better.” Sam leans forward and grips Steve's shoulders tightly. “You're my best friend. Riley is gone, and it hurts everyday, but I can't do a damn thing about it. You can get your best friend back, but the cost will be high. But you have me, and you have a team that loves each other underneath all that fighting. You have a home. Don't waste it searching for something you can't have again.”

Steve covers one of Sam's hands with his. “You should go back to school and become a therapist.”

Sam snorts. “Man, I'm only doing this for you because I had a poster of you on my wall forever.”

“Well, thanks.”

“It's three in the morning. Go to bed. It'll feel better in the morning.”

It's Steve's turn to snort, but he shoos Sam out and steps out of the tub. A cascade of red drips underneath him; he must have been bleeding more than he thought. “Remind me to get stitched up in the morning,” he mutters—to himself or JARVIS, whichever of them will remember. 

But Sam hears him. “I'll do it now. Poking you with a needle sounds like fun after that conversation,” he calls into the bathroom. Steve sticks his tongue out, even though Sam can't see him through the partially closed door. He dries and wiggles into a pair of boxers and brushes his teeth, carefully not pulling at his back. When he comes out, Sam's door is wide open and he's threading a needle. 

“You aren't serious about the needle poking, are you?” Steve asks even as he sits on the edge of the bed. 

“You won't even feel it, supersoldier.” Which is not a reassuring statement in the slightest, but Steve obediently offers his back at Sam's hand wave. There's the sting of alcohol then Sam's steady hands moving in and out of his skin.

“It's a common misconception,” Steve says, “that I can't feel small pains. They just fade fast.”

“Well, then, all you have to do it grin and bear it for about five minutes.” There's an undertone of humor and warmth in Sam's tone. Steve feels himself relax at it. The easy way Sam has always spoken to him makes him feel the closest he's felt to comfortable since he woke up in the future.

“I'm lucky to have you,” Steve says. 

The needle doesn't even pause. “Don't try to sweet talk me, Rogers. I ain't stopping.”

He laughs. “No I mean—You remind me there's things worth living for when I want to heroically sacrifice myself again.”

“Commit suicide you mean.”

“It's hard to bear sometimes.”

“I know a few things about that,” Sam murmurs. Then louder, “The people you leave behind might have a few things to say about that.”

“Don't worry. I could never leave you on purpose.”

The needle tugs for its final loop. “Good to know,” Sam says in a strange tone Steve can't understand. “All done.”

“Thanks. Goodnight, Sam.”

“Goodnight. You better make me breakfast after all this. I ain't a supersoldier. I need sleep.”

Steve laughs. “What do you want?”

“Eggs Benedict and waffles.”

“Got it.”

(Steve brings him breakfast in bed. He thinks it's the least he can do. It has nothing to do with how Sam's sleepy morning smile makes him feel the way Peggy's dream-self did).


End file.
